Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won re-election to a third term on Tuesday by the skin of his teeth. Netanyahu narrowly won an election in which disgruntled voters propelled a new centrist challenger into second place, and he now faces the prospect of having to enter a governing coalition that may lead him far astray from the path on which his ultra-right, “the world be damned,” election coalition intended to take the country.

The surprise vote highlights a growing lack of trust among Israeli voters in Netanyahu and his policies.

Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party had assembled an election coalition dominated by ultra-nationalist, far-right and Zionist religious parties, arguably the most radical, reactionary coalition in Israeli political history. The Israeli people didn’t buy it.

Netanyahu had vowed to pursue the policy of expanding Jewish settlements on Israeli occupied Palestinian lands, a policy that violates international law, and would lead Israel further away from peace with the Palestinians, put it at odds with Washington, and deepen the country’s international isolation.

The election coalition Netanyahu had put together intended to continue to pursue policies that have not served Israel well. He has led Israel to become more isolated from the international community than at any time in its history.

This is the man who, according to a poll conducted by the BBC in 2011, has led Israel to be regarded as one of the most negatively viewed countries in the world, ranked at the bottom of the listing with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.

Under his leadership, Israel has earned the reputation of being a “rogue nation,” in violation of more UN resolutions than all nations of the world combined.

He has vigorously reinforced the Israeli policy of disregard for and violation of international law that has spurred a growing international movement to mount campaigns of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Joining the movement are boycotts by British labor unions, and South African Trade Unions’ BDS campaign. The Israeli Journalist Federation was dismissed from the International Federation of Journalists.

A Spanish academic boycott of Ariel University was initiated because it is located on occupied Palestinian territory. The French Solidaires Industries BDS campaign has been joined by the Belgian Trade Union Federation, the Indian Cochin Port Union, and Basque trade unions in Spain. The BDS movement against Israel has spread to over 70 nations and is growing rapidly.

An Atlantic national correspondent, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote in an article published January 14, that in the weeks following the United Nations vote to give the Palestinians non-member state status, President Obama said privately and repeatedly, “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.” Goldberg is known to have close ties to the White House.

On January 16, Netanyahu hit back at President Obama saying, ”Only Israelis can determine Israel’s best interests.”

One would think a national leader, with Netanyahu’s dismal track record, would be seeking advice wherever he could find it, rather than telling the world, including Israel’s only remaining ally, to buzz of and mind its own business.

That’s the attitude that likely undermined his election goals. These elections may have forced him to seek that advice, whether he wants it or not.

As the Washington Post columnist Joel Greenberg observed, a Netanyahu government forced into a coalition with a large centrist component could improve Netanyahu’s tense ties with the Obama administration, slow Israel’s slide into international isolation caused by Israeli refusal thus far to enter peace talks with the Palestinians, and by Netanyahu’s recent announcements of an aggressive new settlement building policy in the West Bank.

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Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.

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The right-wing Likud-Beiteinu coalition of Netanyahu won 31 of 120 seats in the next parliament. But it was a sharp drop from the present combined total of 42 for the two parties.
Why is it sandman doesn’t know that?

Estes should have no interest in such irrelevancies. The election's big winner was the centrist Yesh Atid party, which garnered 19 seats, far outrunning election-eve polls to become Israel's second-largest party. The Jewish Home Party is a non-factor.

has awakened the world to Israel's abusive policies and the history behind them. World powers will no longer tolerate Israel's stealing land, water and abusing Palestinians by keeping them in concentration camps. Israel's continued defiance of the UN's resolutions are becoming more widely known throughtout previously ignorant populations. What once could be proclaimed in newpapers is no longer the case. The people in the US are tired of the influence of AIPAC on out Govt, its relentless spying, and don't really feel as if they ever were much of an ally. If both the US and Israel keep doing what they are doing, israel will be under increasing threat from its enemies, and the US wont be able to borrow the money to defend them, and the citizens likely wont be interested.